Industry has increasingly become aware of the impact of industrial chemicals on the health of personnel exposed to such chemicals. In addition, government agencies are under increasing pressure to plan for attacks, particularly including terrorist attacks that use chemical and biological agents. As a result, there is an increasing interest in protective clothing and garments. For example, early emergency responders, such as fire and EMS personnel, desire protective covering to protect them from industrial chemicals, biological agents, warfare chemicals and extreme temperatures. Other emergency responders and military users, such as hazardous material removal personnel, are also interested in protective clothing.
As a result of the increased interest, standards, such as NFPA 1991, NFPA 1992, and NFPA 1994, have been developed. However, many traditional protective clothing designs and, in particular, traditional gloves and glove systems fail to meet the standard requirements.
Traditional glove systems include a set of gloves that are optionally worn by a user. The user may, for example, select and don an inner glove, then select and don an intermediate glove, and then select and don an outer glove. Since the gloves are optional, the user may selectively change the capabilities of the glove system by failing to put on a particular glove layer. As such, no single glove passes the stringent protective clothing standards such as NFPA 1991, NFPA 1992 or any class of NFPA 1994. Similarly, if any one glove in the traditional glove system is omitted, the suit ensemble certification to the above-mentioned standards is voided. As such, an improved glove system would be desirable.